There are a lot of people in this industry who aren’t… shall we say… the nicest people on the planet?

But there are also some genuinely nice and loyal people out there as well. Kevin Muldoon seems to be one of these people.

I first found Kevin 2-3 months ago when I happened upon his blog BloggingTips.com. I liked the look of his blog and he wrote some good quality content as well.

When I would critique and review other blogs, I’d often use BloggingTips as an example of a nice clean, crisp design with the main focus around its content (unfortunately, the design has since changed a bit and so it isn’t quite as relevant anymore).

Noticing that Kevin’s blog was increasing in popularity very fast, my opportunity instincts kicked in and I contacted him for the first time, requesting a link exchange even though he had no PR yet since BloggingTips was only launched in May. But his RSS was increasing rapidly and his Alexa was dropping as well.

At first he declined, only because he didn’t have a links or partner section on his blog. However, a few weeks later he contacted me back stating he was ready to add one to his front page, and so even though my link would only be placed on his front page and not sitewide, I agreed anyway because I like to link to other valuable blogs from my site.

About a month or so later, I noticed that both Kevin and my RSS feeds were about the same (around 750 or so at the time) and were increasing at roughly the same speed as well, so I decided to contact him for a bit of a friendly contest.

The competition I proposed was that the first person to hit 1,000 RSS readers had to pay the other person $100.

Now, usually when people make friendly side bets they have the loser pay the winner… but when we’re both betting on a positive milestone, I think it makes more sense for the winner to pay the loser! This way, both people win and are happy. Sure, the one person loses $100 but he should be happy that he just hit 1,000 RSS readers. And of course the other person gets a free $100 🙂

I was pleased that Kevin liked my idea and readily agreed.

A few days ago, BloggingTips hit its 1,000 RSS milestone, and I was happy to see that Kevin wasn’t…. shall we say…. forgetful… about our $100, and immediately sent it over.

See? I got a free $100 and Kevin hit a great milestone. Of course though, I’d much rather have hit the milestone myself…

I think I’m going to contact him again and offer him a new side bet, and I’ll give him 2:1 odds this time. I’m going to offer to put up $300 to his $150 to the first person who reaches 1,500 RSS. We’ll see if he agrees. I’m giving him odds because I’ve been stuck at 800-840 for a while now and he’s at 1,000.

Anyhow, after paying me on our $100 side bet, I asked Kevin if he could post about my $3,600 PublisherForums Contest. He agreed to mention it in his next “Links Roundup” post series. And, Kevin being the nice guy he is, even linked it under his “Featured Sites” section on the left side of his blog to give a bit of added exposure.

After thanking him for this, I asked him how much he charged for a paid review and what his PayPal address was to send the money. I was surprised, however, when Kevin told me not to worry about payment and that he’d just write a whole post about my contest instead of the “Links Roundup” blurb.

So, *shrug*… I just wanted to mention his acts of kindness here…. give him some linkback love and all that jazz, because I’m nice too 🙂

What’s to be learned here? Well, since Kevin had been nice to me, it puts him on my good list. If he ever needs something, I’ll definitely remember his prior acts of kindness, and if there is ever some controversy about him, I’ll probably be backing him up.

So the lesson is that it doesn’t hurt to be nice… as karma will often pay you back. It’s better to make friends than enemies.

(On a side note, after talking to Kevin on MSN, I found out that I actually know him. Now, I thought this Kevin Muldoon person was a completely new guy, but apparently he’s an old acquaintance I’ve known for quite a while.. back from the good-days-at-Sitepoint era.

And he was even a past advertiser on one of my other sites… haha… I didn’t know it was him partly because I’m used to his old Sitepoint name!)

18 Responses to “Kevin Muldoon is a Cool Guy”

I appreciate the kudos but in my own defence, I don’t think I was being too nice at all

* I believe a bets a bet ie. don’t agree to a bet if you wont pay up 🙂
* I didn’t think it would be fair to charge you for a paid review for mentioning the competition because (a) All the info was on your competition page so it only took me 5 mins to write the post and (b) The competition was relevant to bloggers as there were a lot of prizes which were for bloggers.
* Lastly, with regards to the link in the sidebar. If you remember right, I had originally only added your link to the home page whereas you had added my link to all of the pages on your blog so it was only fair 🙂

Don’t think I’ll participate in another bet though as I’m planning on getting more writers on the blog soon plus traffic is increasing well so I’m hoping to reach 1,500 soon….well fingers crossed….plus I think your good at this gambling thing!!

I do agree with what you said though, it’s better to make friends than enemies. I still keep in contact with some designers that I have worked before in the past. However, there are also designers and programmers who I have paid a fee in respect of a project and as soon as that money leaves your paypal account their service and support vanishes.

I also try not to see other webmasters as rivals. I’ve had some great advice, tips and help from other people in this industry.

I have to agree with you Tyler. Kevin seems to be a very genuine dude. Met Kevin about 2 months ago myself and have been writing for Blogging Tips about a month. He has helped me out with some things on my blog and given me some pointers. We certainly need more people like Kevin around. Would make the whole Internet a nicer place.

The new layout is looking great by the way. Nice colors, gradients, the whole nine yards.

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